Jesus  And  The  Thought  Of  The 
World 

By' 

The  Habbi  "'artin  A.  (Meyer 
The  Rev.  Bradford  Leavitt 
The  Rev.  C.  F.  Aked 


alifornia 

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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Mary  J.   McDonald 


Jesus  and  the  Thought  of  the   World 


By 


The  Rabbi  Martin  A.  Meyer,  Ph.D. 

The  Rev.  Bradford  Leavitt 
The  tReT?.  C.  F.  Aked,  D.D.,  LL.<D. 


Sermons  preached  in  the  Temple  Emanu-El 

San  Francisco 


on 


Sunday,  January  25,  J914 

and 
Sunday,  February  t,  J9I4 


Press  of  Thos.  J.  Davis  &  Son,  S.  F. 


Twenty-five  Cents 


Jesus  and  the  Thought  of  the   World 


By 


The  Rabbi  Martin  A.,  Meyer,  Ph.D. 

The  Rev.  Bradford  Leavitt 
The  <%>)>.  C.  F.  Aked,  D.D.,  LL,<D. 


Sermons  preached  in  the  Temple  Emantt-El 
San  Francisco 


on 


Sunday,  January  25,  1914 

and 
Sunday,  February  1,  1914 


&H'!&0':;U^ !";  ":O   -"U-  ;  i 


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The  Jewish   Vielz>  of  Jesus 

<By 

abbi  Martin  A.  Meyer,  cPh.  D. 
Sunday  Morning,  January  25,  1914 


THE  JEWISH  VIEW  OF  JESUS. 

Friends,  in  one  way  I  rejoice  in  the  triunity,  in  which  I 
have  the  honor  to  be  the  first  speaker ;  in  another  sense 
I  regret  it.  I  rejoice  that  we  can  discuss  such  a  theme — 
that  you  have  invited  me,  a  Jew,  to  discuss  this  matter 
with  you.  On  the  other  hand  I  regret  its  futility,  save 
as  regards  the  liberal  attitude  it  may  encourage,  for,  after 
all  is  said  and  done,  you  are  not  going  to  be  persuaded 
by  me,  and  I  fancy  I  shall  not  be  persuaded  by  you.  It 
reminds  me  of  the  public  disputations  held  in  the  Middle 
Ages  between  Jews  and  Catholics ;  the  futile  result  was 
usually  the  same.  The  Jews  went  away  feeling  they  had 
presented  irrefutable  arguments  on  their  side,  and  the  Cath- 
olics, to  disprove  these  arguments,  generally  caused  many 
Jews  either  to  be  put  to  death  or  to  be  forcibly  baptized ; 
so,  of  course,  the  question  remained  just  where  it  was  for 
both  parties. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  we  are  talking  as  friends, 
honest  friends,  one  with  the  other,  just  as  honestly  as  I 
should  expect  that  a  Christian  would  discuss  some  point 
in  my  Jewish  belief  with  me — differing  from  me  naturally, 
because  he  is  a  Christian  and  I  am  a  Jew,  agreeing  with 
me  at  certain  points  because  he  is  a  Christian  and  I  am  a 
Jew.  Yet  each  of  us  must  frankly  present  his  own  point 
of  view  without  malice,  with  no  idea  of  controversy,  yet 
each  emphasizing  his  angle  of  vision. 

Frankly,  the  whole  matter  of  the  world's  views  of  the 
person  of  Jesus  is  one  of  those  subjects  that  I  feel  will 
only  be  understood  by  the  presentation  of  every  point  of 
view.  I  have  spent  my  last  week,  not  in  reading  what  the 
Jews  have  to  say  about  Jesus,  but  reading  a  Roman  Catholic 


treatise  telling  me  what  the  Catholic  Church  has  to  say 
about  Christ,  so  that  I  might  thoroughly  appreciate  what 
the  orthodox  view  of  his  life  is. 

Orthodox  Judiasm  has  nothing  to  do,  absolutely  nothing 
to  do,  with  Jesus  or  Christianity.  No  Jew  could  ever 
understand  how  the  religion  preaching  love  could  have  per- 
secuted the  Jews  and  Judaism  unfailingly,  generation  after 
generation.  The  result  on  the  part  of  the  orthodox  Jew 
was  an  unqualified  contempt  for  everything  Christian.  Nor 
did  he  hesitate  to  express  his  feelings  in  this  matter.  It 
crystallized  itself  in  a  Hebrew  version  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
in  which  all  the  facts  of  that  life  were  explained  on  a 
frankly  naturalistic  basis.  It  further  expressed  itself  in 
an  abundant  polemic  and  apologetic  literature,  in  which 
these  bold  spirits  placed  the  Jewish  viewpoint  before  a 
hostile  world.  It  indulged  freely  in  criticism  of  Christian 
doctrines ;  contradicted  the  prevailing  Christian  exegesis 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  even  did  not  hesitate  to  speak 
its  mind  of  Christian  practices  and  persecutions.  It  was 
the  frank  expression  of  a  self-reliant,  self-intelligent  group, 
who  feared  nothing  more  than  faithlessness  to  its  ideal. 
Many  a  one  paid  for  his  boldness  with  his  life,  after  hav- 
ing been  subjected  to  unspeakable  torture;  but  once  under- 
stand the  point  of  view  of  this  little  handful  of  rejected 
and  misunderstood  people,  as  found  in  the  literature  of  the 
Jew  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  you  can  appreciate  the  spirit 
of  the  Jew  in  all  ages.  If  you  want  to  understand  that 
remarkable  age  of  history  you  must  remember  that  the 
dark  ages  of  Christianity  were  parallel  with  an  age  of  un- 
paralleled spiritual  and  intellectual  glory  for  the  Jew;  that 
it  was  not  until  the  year  1492,  after  the  world  seemed  to 
have  refused  its  last  resting-place  to  the  Jew,  that  what 
we  regard  as  the  dark  ages  of  Jewry  had  their  beginning. 

In  the  era  of  the  highest  spiritual  culture  of  the  Jew, 
there  were  great  spirits  who  had  a  larger  view  of  the 
place  of  Christianity  and  Islam  in  the  world  economy, 
consistent  with  their  loyalty  to  Judaism.  The  great  Span- 
ish philosopher  and  poet,  Jehuda  Halevi  (not  to  know  his 


impassioned  muse  is  to  be  ignorant  of  one  of  the  greatest 
souls  of  the  world  of  song)  and  the  no  less  distinguished 
Maimonides,  physician,  philosopher  and  guide  to  the  per- 
plexed (to  whose  works  such  great  lights  of  the  Christian 
world  as  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Duns  Scotus  did  not  hesitate 
to  resort  for  instruction)  made  the  splendid  point  that  both 
of  the  daughter  faiths  of  Judaism  were  doing  a  God-ap- 
pointed work.  They  were  disseminating  Jewish  truth 
though  in  non-Jewish  form ;  partial,  to  be  sure,  but  such 
work  would  eventually  usher  in  the  final  synthesis  of  the 
Messianic  era. 

The  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  marked  a  new 
era  in  Jewish  thought  and  belief.  We  generally  refer  to 
this  as  the  era  of  modern  Judaism,  for  it  was  then  that  the 
Jews  again  turned  their  attention  to  their  own  literature 
and  their  own  history,  and  were  permitted  to  mingle  with 
the  world  outside  the  ghetto  and  hear  of  its  achievements 
and  learn  its  value.  In  the  study  of  religion  and  the  sources 
of  religion  both  from  the  ethnological  and  from  the  com- 
parative point  of  view,  the  modern  Jew  learned  much  about 
the  Jewish  elements  of  Christianity;  but  he  recognized  at 
the  very  outset  that  the  Jewish  element  was  but  one  among 
the  many  which  went  into  the  mosaic  which  is  called 
Christianity. 

Regarding  the  question  of  the  historicity  of  Jesus — there 
are  many  who  deny  it,  and  they  are  backed  up  by  very 
profound  arguments — we  shall  omit  all  such  discussion  and 
shall  assume  for  our  purposes  that  Jesus  did  exist. 

I  take  it  as  expressive  of  my  whole  point  of  view,  that 
Jesus  the  Jew  is  not  the  equivalent  of  the  Christ  preached 
in  the  churches  throughout  the  centuries.  You  who  follow 
recent  theological  literature  may  remember  that  this  point 
of  view  is  not  alien  to  the  point  of  view  of  a  number  of 
very  earnest  Christians.  They  hold  that  because  of  the 
comparative  failure  of  the  attempt  to  find  the  actual  words 
and  absolutely  uncontrovertible  facts  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
as  presented  in  the  gospels  and  epistles,  the  real  Jesus  is 
not  to  be  found  other  than  in  the  creeds  of  the  churches 


as  taught  throughout  the  centuries.  Scientific  researches 
had  reduced  the  desired  incontrovertible  facts  to  a  vanish- 
ing minimum.  Consequently,  with  the  courage  of  despair, 
they  have  set  aside  all  the  results  of  the  historical  school 
and  have  taken  refuge  in  the  dogmas  of  the  churches.  It 
is  the  Christ  idea  that  is  important;  the  historical  character 
less  significant.  But  our  view  though  apparently  similar 
is  just  the  very  opposite.  We  arrive  at  a  similar  statement 
by  a  far  different  line  of  reasoning. 

In  the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  following  upon  the  state- 
ment of  the  newer  attitude  of  sympathetic  understanding 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  and  of  Christianity,  many  Jews  lost  their 
traditional  balance  entirely.  Many  saw  in  Christianity  a 
fulfilled  Judaism  and  so  were  ready  to  announce  their  al- 
legiance to  the  daughter  faith.  Others  not  ready  to  go 
to  this  extreme  made  themselves  similarly  conspicuous  by 
their  loud  protestations  of  the  loss  to  Judaism  of  its  cen- 
turies-old attitude  towards  his  personality  and  the  faith 
proclaimed  in  his  name.  They  were  keen  to  have  Jesus 
and  his  doctrine  taught  in  Jewish  religious  schools,  to 
have  Jesus  hailed  as  a  long-lost  brother,  as  the  last,  if  not 
the  greatest  of  the  Jewish  prophets.  I  do  not  believe  tha'E 
either  of  these  extreme  groups  represents  the  judgment  of 
the  best  minds  of  modern  Jewry.  The  attitude  of  these  is 
far  more  insistent  upon  the  validity  and  the  sufficiency  of 
Judaism  as  a  system  of  faith  and  of  life. 

The  matter  of  the  modern  Jewish  point  of  view  of  the 
life  of  Jesus  is  determined  by  careful  study  of  the  gospels 
themselves.  In  the  gospels  we  find  a  number  of  elements. 
We  find,  first  of  all,  an  element  indicating  most  markedly 
what  we  shall  call  Gentile  influence;  for  example,  the  in- 
fluence of  Alexandria  upon  the  gospels  cannot  be  gainsaid. 
The  influence  of  both  Greek  and  Egyptian  is  evident  upon 
careful  study  of  the  gospel,  for  it  is  well  established  that 
the  gospels,  etc.,  got  their  final  form  in  Alexandria.  We 
might  go  further  and  say  that  there  were  evidences  of 
Babylonian  and  Hindoo  influence.  These  influences  we  find 
jointly  expressed  in  the  stories  of  the  miraculous  birth, 


of  the   atoning   death   and   the   miraculous   resurrection   of 
Jesus;  and  as  Jews  we  will  have  none  of  these. 

We  next  notice  what  might  be  called  the  Judaeo-Hellen- 
istic  part  of  the  New  Testament,  with  particular  reference 
to  the  "logos"  theory  as  expounded  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
that  of  St.  John,  as  well  as  the  allegorizing  and  antinomian 
tendencies  in  various  parts  of  the  Testament.  This  line 
of  thought  had  its  inception  in  the  attempted  harmoniza- 
tion of  Greek  philosophy  and  Hebrew  prophetism  which 
was  popular  among  the  Jews  of  Egypt.  The  chief  exponent 
of  this  peculiar  philosophy  was  the  famous  Philo  of  Alex- 
andria. Philo,  by  the  way,  was  a  contemporary  of  Jesus, 
but  in  all  his  numerous  works  he  makes  no  mention  or 
reference  to  the  work  or  life  of  Jesus.  It  is  said  that  Philo 
judaized  Platonism  and  Platonized  Judaism.  Character- 
istic of  his  work  and  that  of  all  his  school  was  the  allegor- 
ical method  of  Bible  interpretation.  The  normal  Jewish 
development  in  Palestine  saw  in  this  method  a  menace 
to  its  religious  life,  and  consequently  rejected  it.  They 
saw  its  ultimate  exaggerations  and  dangers,  for  it  was  a 
short  and  easy  step  from  sanity  to  wildness,  and  the  Jew 
has  been  sane  at  all  times  in  his  religious  positions.  Nascent 
Christianity  was  deeply  influenced  by  this  school  of  thought. 
In  fact,  Philo  was  popular  with  the  Church  Fathers  rather 
than  with  his  own  people.  He  has  been  claimed  as  a  Chris- 
tian, though  there  is  no  basis  in  fact  for  such  a  claim. 
While  we  can  trace  the  development  of  the  philonic  position 
from  Jewish  sources,  particularly  from  the  Wisdom  Liter- 
ature of  Israel,  its  position  was  more  acceptable  to  Christ- 
ianity than  to  Judaism.  The  strict  monotheism  of  Judaism 
felt  itself  compromised  by  the  theories  of  this  school.  Later 
Christianity  felt  the  full  force  of  the  exaggerated  position 
assumed  by  the  teachers  of  this  line  of  thought.  Further, 
the  antagonistic  position  held  to  the  Law  (as  the  Hebrew 
word  "Torah"  is  loosely  translated)  was  decidedly  alien  to 
the  thought  of  the  Jew.  I  can  but  refer  you  to  that  remark- 
able little  book  of  Travers  Herford  on  Pharisaism  (the 
author  is  a  Christian  minister,  mind  you)  for  a  presenta- 


tion  of  the  attitude  of  the  Jew  to  his  Torah  and  to  all 
movements  inimical  to  its  integrity.  So  the  Jew  perforce 
finds  no  share  in  that  presentation  of  Jesus  which  was  de- 
termined by  St.  John  and  St.  Paul,  nor  in  that  Christianity 
which  grew  out  of  their  teachings.  And  Christianity  as 
we  know  it  through  the  centuries  was  profoundly  modi- 
fied by  this  point  of  view. 

I  next  notice  what  we  might  call  the  chauvinistic  Jewish 
element  of  the  gospel.  It  is  but  one  of  a  half-dozen  pre- 
sentations of  Jesus.  There  is  evidence  that  there  was  one 
interpretation — one  element  of  the  gospel,  which  presented 
a  Jesus  whose  interest  was  wholly  and  solely  within  the 
confines  of  Israel ;  and  we  find  Rabbis  of  that  period  such 
as  Shammai,  the  associate  of  Hillel,  and  Akiba,  the  rabbi 
hero  of  the  last  war  against  the  Romans,  who  held  the  same 
point  of  view — a  mission  of  the  Jew  to  the  Jew  himself. 
It  is  the  picture  of  a  Jesus  intent  on  the  internal  reform  of 
his  people.  In  such  passages  as  "It  is  not  meet  to  take 
the  children's  bread  and  cast  it  to  the  dogs"  in  reply  to 
the  request  of  the  Phoenician  woman  to  heal  her  daughter, 
and  "Give  not  that  which  is  holy  unto  the  dogs,  neither 
cast  pearls  before  swine,"  a  Jesus  is  presented  to  us  who  is 
a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews.  Let  it  be  understood  that  even 
the  most  intense  Hebrew  did  not  refuse  to  accept  non-Jews 
into  the  fold  of  his  people  and  his  faith,  but  such  acceptance 
had  to  be  on  the  terms  laid  down  by  the  Hebrews.  And  in 
this  same  manner,  too,  have  all  historic  religions  of  which 
we  have  knowledge  accepted  converts.  Catholicism  will 
not  accept  the  convert  unless  he  admit  the  primacy  of  the 
Pope,  nor  will  the  Evangelical,  unless  the  would-be  pros- 
elyte accept  the  typical  doctrines  of  his  position,  such  as 
the  Trinity  and  the  atoning  value  of  the  death  of  Jesus. 
That  the  Jew  laid  down  the  conditions  on  which  others 
might  be  admitted  to  his  fold  was  well  within  his  right. 
And  history  tells  us  that  there  were  large  numbers  who 
were  ready  to  enter  Judaism  under  these  conditions.  The 
Evangelist  himself  admitted  that  "Pharisees  compassed 
land  and  sea  to  make  one  convert."  And  in  every  town 

10 


of  importance  in  the  Mediterranean  world  there  were  large 
groups  of  proselytes  and  would-be  proselytes.  The  intense 
feeling  against  the  Roman  oppressor  of  Judea  brought  many 
a  fierce  denunciation  of  the  gentile  to  the  lips  of  the  Jew 
which  in  milder  times  had  never  been  uttered.  Yet  so  in- 
tense a  Jew  as  Akiba,  the  great  teacher  of  the  literal  method 
of  Bible  exegesis,  found  it  compatible  with  his  zealous  ad- 
vocacy of  Judaism  to  teach  that  the  greatest  verse  in  the 
Bible  was  Genesis,  v.  1,  "This  is  the  book  of  the  generations 
of  Adam,"  "for,"  said  he,  "it  teaches  us  who  is  our  neigh- 
bor." 

We  find  yet  another  element — an  exceedingly  important 
element — what  I  would  call  the  Liberal  Jewish  Element, 
such  as  is  evidenced  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  particularly 
in  the  original  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  not  so  much  in  the 
version  thereof  as  expanded  by  later  writers.  Here  we 
find  ourselves  in  the  company  of  Hillel,  whose  statement 
of  the  Golden  Rule  is  parallel  to  that  found  in  the  gospels ; 
who  interpreted  the  Golden  Rule  as  the  essence  of  the 
Torah,  of  Jewish  religious  culture.  His  mildness  was  pro- 
verbial, his  influence  widespread,  not  only  because  of  his 
profound  knowledge  of  the  technical  interpretation  of  Bible 
and  custom,  but  because  of  his  deep  passion  for  morality 
and  for  righteousness.  We  find  ourselves  in  the  company 
of  Jochanan  ben  Zakkai,  that  great  teacher  of  the  Recon- 
struction of  Jewish  life,  who  taught  that  as  the  sacrificial 
system  was  a  thing  of  the  past  and  forever  done  with,  that 
prayer  and  charity  should  take  the  place  of  this  ritual. 
Frankly,  with  this  passionate  ethical  and  spiritual  presen- 
tation of  Jesus  we  find  ourselves  in  the  company  of  a  phase 
of  Jesus  which  is  most  Jewish,  Jewish  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  term.  Like  his  contemporaries  he  stood  within  the 
House  of  Israel,  but  his  vision  was  beyond  the  House  of 
Israel.  He,  too,  stood  on  those  heights  which  we  recog- 
nize as  strictly  Jewish,  whose  base  was  the  House  of  Israel, 
whose  outlook  was  all  mankind. 

Of  course,  I  appreciate  that  you  may  say  that  it  is  this 
ethical  presentation  of  Jesus  which  you  recognize  as  most 

11 


truly  Jesianic,  in  which  you  find  the  Jesus  that  modern 
Christianity  is  emphasizing  as  its  very  own.  But  my  point 
is  that  it  is  just  this  Jesus  teaching  the  doctrine  of  repent- 
ance and  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  religion  of  the  heart, 
and  of  love,  of  the  Golden  Rule,  of  the  supreme  claim  of 
the  ethical  as  against  the  strictly  ritual  who  stands  on 
strictly  Jewish  ground,  neither  adding  thereto  nor  sub- 
tracting therefrom.  It  is  the  religion  of  the  prophets  of 
Israel  and  their  descendants  which  he  is  voicing.  The 
glorious  vision  of  the  second  Isaiah  foreseeing  the  ingath- 
ering of  the  peoples  of  the  world  is  never  excelled  in  relig- 
ious literature ;  and  Hosea's  story  of  the  prodigal  wife  is 
no  less  tender  than  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son.  I  wish 
to  say  a  word  of  warning  against  the  Jewish  "man  in  the 
street"  who,  ignorant  of  both  New  and  Old  Testaments, 
not  to  mention  the  traditional  literature  of  the  Jew — hardly 
less  precious  in  the  eyes  of  the  Jew  and  certainly  of  vast 
significance  at  this  point — who  essays  to  pass  judgment 
upon  these  important  questions,  who  jumps  at  conclusions 
because  he  sees  superficial  resemblances,  and  does  not  see 
the  processes  behind  the  surface  facts.  In  that  wonderful 
literature  which  the  Jew  produced,  a  veritable  ocean,  need- 
ing the  steady  hand  of  a  pilot  as  well  as  compass  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  stars  for  its  safe  crossing,  the  informed  Jew 
finds  all  those  elements  of  Jesus'  teaching  just  enumerated, 
and  frequently  the  very  language  is  identical. 

For  instance,  the  oft-quoted  verse,  so  significant  for  the 
Catholic  Church :  "Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  do  I 
build  my  church."  This  is  paralleled  by  a  Midrash  (i.  e., 
a  popular  Bible  homily)  in  which  the  very  language  is 
used  with  reference  to  Abraham,  the  father  of  the  faith- 
ful. Again,  take  the  verse :  "Judge  not,  lest  ye  be  judged," 
and  compare  it  with  the  verses  from  "The  Sayings  of  the 
Fathers":  "Judge  no  man  till  thou  stand  in  his  place" 
and  "Judge  every  man  from  the  side  of  graciousness  and 
generosity."  It  is  evident  that  the  one  has  been  borrowed 
from  the  other,  or  probably,  with  more  fairness,  both  were 
derived  from  a  common  source.  Jesus  as  a  lad  in  the 

12 


schools  of  Galilee  had  learned  the  old  Jewish  literature, 
the  literature  of  his  people.  That  he  quotes  from  that 
source,  that  he  adapts  from  that  literature  is  no  more  to 
be  wondered  at  than  that  a  modern  should  quote  Goethe 
or  Browning,  modifying  the  original  to  his  own  end.  But 
clever  as  the  adaptation  or  anthology  may  be,  one  would 
never  think  of  attributing  originality  to  such  a  writer  or 
preacher.  Harnack,  the  great  student  of  dogmatics,  tells 
us  that  he  finds  the  emphasis  new  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
But  we  must  differ  from  his  conclusions  for  in  the  Jewish 
literature  contemporary  with  and  even  precedent  to  the 
time  of  Jesus  we  find  the  very  points  which  are  singled 
out  as  typical  of  his  position,  receiving  more  and  more  at- 
tention. 

And  I  want  to  call  attention  to  a  certain,  to  me  sig- 
nificant, fact  at  this  point.  In  the  career  of  every  Jewish 
teacher  there  were  two  marked  and  yet  mutually  dependent 
activities.  One  is  called  the  Halachic,  roughly  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  rules  and  the  establishment  of  the  norms 
of  the  religious  life,  ritual,  dogmatic  and  ethical.  This  is 
frequently  referred  to  as  the  legalistic  work  of  the  rabbis. 
On  the  other  side  there  was  what  was  called  the  Haggadic, 
which  we  can  best  describe  as  the  popular,  homiletic  activ- 
ity, in  which  Bible  verses  got  their  spiritual  reading,  the 
lesson  being  driven  home  by  the  frequent  use  of  parable, 
aphorism  and  legend.  We  have  both  sides  of  the  activity 
of  the  rabbis  preserved  to  us.  Of  Jesus  we  have  but  the 
Haggadic  element  preserved  due  to  the  disregard  of  the 
church  of  the  nomistic  tendencies  of  Judaism.  Yet  there 
are  evidences  that  Jesus  knew  and  used  the  method  of  the 
rabbis.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  his  language  can  be 
best  understood  when  translated  back  into  the  terminology 
of  the  schools,  and  his  argument  in  proving  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  in  debate  with  the  Sadducees  as  reported  in  the 
three  gospels  is  to  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  method  of 
the  schoolmen  of  his  day.  If  we  had  but  the  Haggadic 
side  of  the  rabbis  of  his  day  preserved,  the  parallels  would 
be  still  more  striking.  We  Jews  find  much  satisfaction  in 

13 


the  thought  of  the  priority  of  Jewish  teaching  along  those 
very  lines  which  now  you  stress  as  typical  of  the  Christian 
position. 

There  is  still  another  element  in  the  gospels  and  the 
Testament  which  I  feel  I  must  speak  of.  It  might  be 
termed  the  anti-Jewish  element.  I  can  understand  the 
apologetics  of  these  facts  but  the  facts  themselves  furnish 
an  important  element  in  the  determination  of  our  concept 
of  the  person  of  Jesus  and  of  Christianity  too.  We  take 
exception  to  the  wholesale  and  intemperate  denunciation  of 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees.  That  there  were  hypocrites  in 
ancient  Israel  is  as  natural,  I  am  sure,  as  there  are  hypo- 
crites in  modern  America.  That  the  Jews  themselves 
knew  that  there  were  such  and  set  up  the  old  standards  of 
a  clean  heart  is  known  to  every  student  of  the  literature 
of  that  period.  But  these  very  scribes  and  Pharisees  were 
the  teachers  of  Jesus  and  preserved  that  form  of  the  relig- 
ious life  which  survived  temple  and  priesthood.  We  re- 
cognize in  these  passionate  passages  not  only  the  fervor 
of  moral  disapproval  of  hypocrisy,  etc.,  but  also  an  attempt 
to  put  the  Jews  before  the  Gentile  world  in  as  bad  a  light 
as  possible.  Similarly,  the  picture  tones  down  the  asperity 
of  the  truth  about  the  Roman  rulers  of  Palestine  so  that  the 
gospel  might  be  the  more  readily  accepted  by  the  Gentiles 
to  whom  it  was  presented.  The  ancient  secular  historians, 
for  example,  are  not  sparing  of  the  dark  colors  with  which 
they  paint  the  portrait  of  Pontius  Pilate.  Rather  than  do 
anything  to  favor  the  clamors  of  the  Jewish  public  it  was 
his  delight  to  thwart  them  at  every  turn,  to  humiliate  them 
beyond  words.  The  gospel  shows  Pilate  in  such  delicate 
tones  as  to  cause  profound  questioning  as  to  the  reliability 
of  the  picture  and  to  suggest  that  there  was  the  desire  to 
throw  the  onus  of  the  death  of  Jesus  from  the  shoulders 
of  the  Romans  to  those  of  the  Jews.  And  we  Jews  must 
reject  such  elements  as  these,  as  no  doubt  you  will  reject 
everything  I  say  this  morning  which  does  not  agree  with 
your  point  of  view.  We  cannot  picture  a  Jesus,  a  Jew,  who 
curried  favor  with  the  Roman  powers.  If  the  picture  is 

14 


consistent,  the  heart  which  beat  with  such  warm  sympathy 
for  mankind,  must  have  had  that  much  Jewish  loyalty  in  its 
Jewish  blood  to  feel  for  the  shame  and  humiliation  to  which 
his  people  were  then  subjected  and  to  share  in  the  hope  of 
the  amelioration  of  their  sad  condition.  We  would  not 
like  to  see  Jesus  in  the  same  class  of  dubious  patriots  such 
as  Flavius  Josephus. 

No  doubt  many  of  you  will  resort  to  the  pragmatic  argu- 
ment and  appeal  to  what  has  been  done  in  Jesus'  name  as 
the  best  justification  of  his  life  and  works.  It's  a  dangerous 
argument,  friends.  It's  a  two-edged  sword.  You  no  doubt 
can  paint  one  picture  of  the  world  in  the  shadow  of  the 
cross,  we  a  startlingly  different  one.  For  you,  there  is  the 
vision  of  the  poor,  the  suffering,  the  weary,  finding  rest 
and  refreshment  under  the  symbol  of  your  faith.  For  us 
it  is  the  sorry  spectacle  of  generations  of  pain  and  misery 
under  the  consecration  of  that  same  symbol ;  and  the  suf- 
fering not  yet  ended  even  in  America  itself.  We  hear  the 
heart  cries  of  those  who  have  been  despised  and  rejected 
of  Christian  men  for  all  these  ages ;  we  know  with  our  heart 
of  hearts  of  the  horrors  of  death,  persecution  and  exile; 
of  the  nameless  tortures  of  children  torn  from  their  parents 
and  of  the  soul  of  a  people  crushed  beneath  the  nameless 
burden  of  discrimination,  contumely  and  shameful  disregard 
of  the  primary  rights  of  the  human.  Both  sides  are  equally 
true;  only  do  you  remember  the  other  side.  And  I  should 
like  to  suggest  that  no  doubt  the  early  Christian  propa- 
gandists were  met  by  a  similar  argument  for  the  reality 
of  the  gods  of  the  nations.  The  Greek  might  urge  with 
equal  truth  and  fervor  that  the  achievements  of  medicine 
under  the  aegis  of  Aesculapius  were  a  sure  sign  of  his 
reality  and  the  progress  of  horticulture,  viticulture  and 
agriculture  were  eloquent  testimonials  to  the  validity  of 
the  persons  of  Ceres  and  Bacchus.  I  do  not  believe  that 
this  argument  proves  anything  one  way  or  the  other.  Every 
religion  could  justify  itself  by  a  similar  line  of  reasoning. 
The  value  of  the  religion  of  the  lowest  savage  is  as  real  to 

15 


him  as  is  the  highest  interpretation  of  the  religious  life 
to  the  most  spiritual  of  Jews  or  Christians. 

We  Jews  find  in  the  history  of  Christianity  certain  facts 
which  we  believe  have  not  been  sufficiently  considered  by 
the  world.  Time  and  again  there  have  been  sectarian  move- 
ments within  Christianity  which  have  been  termed  judaistic 
by  their  opponents,  derisively  but  yet  correctly.  These 
movements  may  at  certain  points  be  said  to  have  been  due 
to  the  more  or  less  direct  influence  of  neighboring  Jews. 
In  southern  France  at  the  time  of  the  great  Albigensian 
heresy  we  know  that  the  Jews  maintained  important  and 
significant  schools  and  academies,  but  to  mention  one  of 
several  such  situations.  But  more  important  are  those 
movements  which  we  cannot  connect  with  such  immediate 
Jewish  activities.  Yet  they  too  are  numerous.  To  us 
they  represent  the  attempt  of  the  Jewish  elements,  which 
Christianity  took  along  with  it  after  its  compromise  with 
the  Gentile  world,  to  reassert  themselves  and  to  throw  off 
the  thrall  of  the  other  elements.  More  and  more  as  the  so- 
called  liberal  Christianity  expresses  itself  does  it  thrust 
into  the  background  these  Gentile  elements  and  assert  more 
and  more  strongly  the  Jewish  elements  of  its  faith  and  of  its 
life.  It's  a  matter  for  earnest  consideration.  The  elimina- 
tion in  this  way  of  many  of  the  miraculous  and  mystical 
elements  of  the  Christian  position  is  the  certain  but  no  less 
sure  victory  of  the  Jewish  element  which  was  carried  along 
despite  the  opposition  of  the  non-Jewish  elements  in  the 
early  church. 

We  Jews  part  company  with  the  most  advanced  Christ- 
ians on  the  subject  of  the  personality  of  Jesus.  To  us  he 
is  no  more  divine  than  he  is  unique  or  sinless.  We  recog- 
nize in  every  human  the  divine  spark  of  the  Creator,  but 
no  more  in  Jesus  than  in  any  one  else.  There  are  those 
rare  souls  who  spell  out  this  divine  in  their  lives  by  their 
faith,  by  their  works;  but  they  are  human,  fundamentally 
human  even  in  the  spark  of  the  divine  we  find  in  them. 
Nor  unique;  for  we  find  him  the  result  of  a  process  in 
which  others  shared  with  him,  the  process  of  spiritual  de- 

16 


velopment  of  which  he  was  by  no  means  the  sole  represen- 
tative in  his  day  and  generation.  Nor  sinless ;  for  his  re- 
jection of  his  mother,  his  reliance  upon  miracles  (rejected 
by  the  best  Jewish  thought  of  his  day),  his  belief  in  demons, 
similarly  refused  by  the  leaders  of  his  generation,  his  em- 
phasis upon  himself — the  oft  repeated,  "but  I  say  unto 
you" — and  the  limitation  of  his  outlook  by  apocalyptic  and 
millennarian  considerations,  all  to  be  sure  explainable  upon 
the  ground  of  popular  teaching. 

Let  us  sum  up.  If  he  lived,  Jesus  lived  and  died  a  Jew. 
The  popular  side  of  his  teaching  has  been  preserved  to  us 
with  but  incidental  reference  to  the  other  side  of  his  activ- 
ity and  method.  This  Jewish  picture  of  Jesus  has  sur- 
vived despite  the  other  elements  in  the  presentation  for  I 
doubt  not  that  the  ecclesiastics  who  so  profoundly  im- 
pressed themselves  upon  the  ages  long  statement  of  Christ- 
ianity would,  in  their  anti-Jewish  zeal,  have  still  further 
suppressed  these  elements  if  they  could.  For  the  fourth 
century  witnessed  the  triumph  of  the  Gentile  influences  of 
Rome,  Greece  and  Egypt.  The  compromise  made  Christ- 
ianity immediately  triumphant  whereas  the  uncompromis- 
ing attitude  of  the  Jew,  chiefly  on  the  subject  of  the  divine 
unity,  put  it  at  a  disadvantage  which  was  further  em- 
phasized when  the  persecuted  turned  persecutor.  As  late 
as  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  necessary  officially  to  forbid  the 
Jew  to  make  proselytes  to  his  faith.  Despite  such  oppo- 
sition, the  Jewish  element  in  Christianity  has  flourished 
through  history,  and  I  frankly  believe  it  is  this  element  in 
Christianity,  as  well  as  in  Islam,  which  makes  it  possible 
for  Judaism  and  its  daughter  faiths  to  flourish  side  by  side 
in  peace  today ;  and  that  it  is  fundamental  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  Christianity  of  today. 

Like  all  true  Jews,  Jesus  was  a  son  of  the  prophets  not 
only  according  to  the  flesh,  but  also  according  to  the  spirit. 
From  his  mother's  bosom  he  imbibed  the  ideals  of  his  peo- 
ple and  their  faith.  Firmly  rooted  in  the  heart  of  his  peo- 
ple his  vision,  like  theirs,  went  beyond  to  the  limits  of  the 
world,  to  all  the  sons  of  men  who  would  some  day  bring 

17 


their  tribute  to  the  great  God  of  Israel.  He  too  like  the 
Jews  of  his  day,  like  Jews  before  him  and  since  him, 
dreamed  of  the  realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  That 
kingdom  of  God  will  not  mean  the  rejection  or  suppression 
of  any  of  the  valid  elements  of  life.  All  truths  will  be  re- 
duced to  their  elements  and  finding  a  common  denominator 
will  be  reconstructed  into  a  satisfactory  whole.  From  these 
elements  the  world  will  draw  its  faith,  and  through  them 
will  be  realized  the  dreams  of  the  prophets  and  of  all  who 
have  had  the  spirit  of  the  prophets  in  them.  Moses  and 
St.  Paul,  Jesus  and  Isaiah,  Augustine  and  Aquinas,  Jane 
Addams  and  Cardinal  Newman,  all  sons  of  the  prophets, 
sons  of  men  and  sons  of  the  divine,  will  contribute  their 
quota  to  the  realization  of  the  ultimate  harmony  of  human 
life. 

We  Jews  stand  firm  not  because  of  stubbornness  or  nar- 
rowness of  vision,  but  because  we  would  emphasize  the 
validity  of  our  faith;  because  we  know  that  through  the 
heart  of  Israel  the  world  has  been  given  the  glimpses  of 
the  divine  and  the  eternal  which  are  sufficient  for  life  and 
for  love,  for  salvation  and  for  everlasting  bliss,  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  world. 


What  do  we  really  knoTto  about  Jesus; 
and  what  does  bis  life  say  to  us? 

<By 

'The  <%ev.  ^Bradford  Leabitt 
Sunday  Evening,  January  25,  1914 


WHAT   DO    WE   REALLY    KNOW   ABOUT   JESUS; 
AND  WHAT  DOES  HIS  LIFE  SAY  TO  US? 

Text,  Acts  X,  36-38:  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whom  God 
anointed  with,  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with  power,  who  went: 
about  doing  good,  .  .  .  for  God  was  with  Him." 

Nineteen  hundred  years  ago  a  Jewish  babe  was  born  in 
Palestine.  He  was  born  about  four  years  before  the  year 
one,  as  we  now  reckon  time.  He  was  the  oldest  son  in 
the  family  of  Joseph  and  Mary.  He  had  brothers  and 
sisters.  His  education  was  the  common  one  for  a  Jewish 
boy.  When  He  grew  up  He  was  taught  the  trade  of  a 
carpenter,  and  He  worked  at  His  trade  with  His  father. 
Little  is  known  of  His  childhood.  His  public  life  began 
when  he  was  about  thirty  years  old ;  it  lasted  two  or  three 
years,  the  accounts  differ  as  to  the  time. 

He  travelled  and  taught  in  Galilee  and  in  Jerusalem,  and 
He  spoke  with  such  simplicity  and  power,  that  He  made 
an  impression  on  the  world  not  equalled  by  any  other 
teacher  of  any  age.  He  was  put  to  death  as  a  martyr 
because  He  came  into  conflict  with  the  ecclestiastical  big- 
otry and  prejudice  of  His  time. 

Since  that  day  He  has  been  the  central  supreme  figure 
of  the  civilized  world.  In  His  name  more  kindnesses  have 
been  done,  more  cruelties  committed  than  in  the  name  of 
any  other.  In  renown,  in  influence,  in  power  there  is  none 
who  comes  even  second  to  Him.  The  story  of  His  life 
and  teaching  is  familiar  to  millions  to  whom  Alexander 
and  Socrates,  Caesar  and  Shakespeare  are  mere  names,  if 
known  at  all.  All  modern  literature  and  laws  have  been 
moulded  by  what  men  have  thought  to  be  His  spirit.  The 

21 


greatest  religion  of  the  world,  the  religion  of  all  the  lead- 
ing races  of  mankind  is  called  after  Him  and  occupied  with 
the  thought  of  Him.  It  is  nearly  1900  years  since  He  died, 
everything  has  changed — He  still  remains,  winning  to  Him- 
self the  love,  the  devotion,  the  homage  of  each  new  genera- 
tion of  men. 

Beside  Him  no  one  may  take  his  stand;  not  even  that 
other  Christ  of  the  Eastern  world,  Gautama  Buddha,  the 
light  of  Asia,  dear  to  so  many  millions  of  the  human  race, 
in  so  many  respects  so  like  our  Jesus.  For  without  urg- 
ing other  differences,  there  remains  always  the  preeminence 
of  Him  whose  lordship  is  over  the  nations  which  have 
steadily  advanced  in  knowledge,  in  civilization,  in  liberty. 

But  who  was  He,  this  greatest  of  men?  The  creeds  can 
give  their  answer  as  they  have  given  it  in  the  same  words 
these  1500  years.  He  is  "God  who  descended  from  heaven 
and  was  incarnate  by  the  Holy  Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
and  was  made  man."  And  if  this  reply  be  accepted,  all 
curiosity  subsides  in  adoring  awe. 

If  this  answer  be  true,  still  the  question  forces  itself  upon 
us,  What  about  the  real,  undeniable  past?  "He  rose  again 
from  the  dead  and  ascended  into  heaven,  and  sitteth  at  the 
right  hand  of  God,  from  thence  He  shall  come  to  judge  the 
quick  and  the  dead" — so  say  our  brethren,  repeating  their 
creeds  this  day. 

Be  it  so;  but  who  was  He,  what  manner  of  man  while 
yet  He  lived  upon  the  earth?  We  have  for  answer  only 
the  stories  of  His  life  and  sayings  which  were  told  about 
among  His  first  disciples  and  after  the  lapse  of  forty  or 
fifty  years  began  to  be  written  in  short  biographies  which 
we  call  gospels,  four  of  which  have  come  down  to  us  com- 
plete. It  is  commonly  claimed  for  these  that  they  are  in- 
spired and  infallible ;  but  as  there  is  no  proof  of  it,  and  the 
writers  themselves  do  not  even  allude  to  such  divine  guid- 
ance, the  only  one  who  tells  us  about  his  work  simply  as- 
serting that  "as  many  had  undertaken  such  a  narrative,  it 
seemed  good  to  Him — not  to  the  Holy  Ghost — to  do  like- 
wise, there  being  I  say  neither  plea  nor  proof,  but  on  the 


other  hand  much  difficulty  in  admitting  such  an  extraor- 
dinary claim,  we  are  bound,  with  all  respect  for  such  vener- 
able documents  to  treat  them  as  human  and  not  divine,  and 
to  subject  them  therefore  to  searching-  examination. 

The  records  we  possess  of  Jesus  are  most  scanty  and 
incomplete.  They  are  undoubtedly  vitiated  by  many  flaws 
inevitable  among  a  people  who  had  no  notion  of  historical 
or  biographical  accuracy.  It  is  easy  to  show  that  they  con- 
stantly contradict  each  other,  and  expose  to  every  student 
their  own  many  inconsistencies.  Nevertheless  we  hold 
them  precious  beyond  all  other  literature  in  the  world 
because  they  give  us  the  only  accounts,  the  only  picture  we 
possess  of  one  whose  influence  has  dominated  human  his- 
tory and  by  whose  thought  and  life  the  thought  and  life  of 
every  one  of  us  is  modified  at  every  moment  of  every  day. 

We  have  no  testimony  of  eye  witnesses  to  the  events  in 
the  life  of  this  great  religious  teacher.  An  oral  tradition 
began  to  take  shape  soon  after  His  death.  It  passed  by 
word  of  mouth  from  apostle  to  convert  and  from  one  church 
to  another.  The  tradition  assumed  different  forms  as  it 
was  repeated  year  after  year  in  different  places — some 
parts  grew  dim,  and  some  events  and  sayings  were  modified 
and  embellished,  while  certain  new  elements  were  added. 
We  must  remember  that  this  story  was  not  told  with  a 
mere  historical  intent  but  to  win  converts  and  to  make  peo- 
ple believe  in  Jesus. 

When  afterwards,  in  the  second  generation  of  disciples, 
attempts  were  made  to  commit  the  tradition  to  writing 
Mark's  gospel  is  generally  recognized  as  the  one  giving  us 
that  tradition  in  its  earliest  form.  We  can  place  that  gos- 
pel at  about  the  year  70  A.  D.,  40  years  after  the  death  of 
Jesus.  Matthew's  gospel  and  Luke's — both  of  which  are 
later  than  Mark's,  give  us  many  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  not 
found  in  the  former.  The  gospel  according  to  John  was 
not  written  until  the  second  century  was  well  advanced. 
From  this  gospel,  which  is  a  philosophical  treatise,  very 
little  can  be  learned  concerning  the  historic  Jesus.  There 
are  hundreds  of  existing  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testa- 


ment,  some  in  small  fragments,  others  nearly  or  wholly 
complete.  There  are  thousands  of  different  readings.  The 
oldest  of  these  manuscripts  goes  back  to  the  fourth  century. 
We  know  that  as  the  writings  were  copied  by  scribes  and 
monks  many  changes  were  made,  some  through  careless- 
ness, some  intentionally  to  clear  up  a  doubtful  passage, 
some  deliberately  to  make  the  reading  conform  to  some 
doctrinal  bias.  We  know  that  a  large  number  of  gospels 
were  written  in  addition  to  the  four  in  our  Bible — some  of 
these  we  have  today,  some  have  been  lost  and  are  known 
only  through  quotations  in  other  ancient  writings. 

Now  what  bearing  have  the  numerous  and  radical  dis- 
coveries in  regard  to  the  real  character  of  the  gospels  upon 
our  views  of  Jesus?  We  want  to  make  our  ideas  about  Him 
square  with  the  facts.  We  care  not  for  the  ideas  of  the 
church  councils  of  the  Middle  Ages — .councils  made  up  of 
men  far  more  ignorant  than  the  scholars  of  today. 

We  want  to  find  the  real  Jesus,  and  we  ask  liberty  for 
the  hungry  human  heart  to  seek  after  Him.  "We  have  got 
to  go  back  of  the  gospels  and  when  we  are  there,  as  the 
result  of  all  the  careful  study  and  research  of  years,  we 
believe  that  we  find  Him — the  son  of  the  carpenter  in  Naz- 
areth; but,  while  the  carpenter's  son,  the  grandest  of  all 
the  sons  of  men,  the  flowering,  the  supreme  result  of  the 
life,  the  inspiration,  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  that  nation 
which  has  been  distinguished  beyond  all  other  peoples  for 
its  genius  in  the  realm  of  religion — the  last  and  greatest 
of  the  teachers  and  prophets,  the  holy  men  of  the  great 
Hebrew  race." 

Suppose  we  revolt  against  the  old  dogmatic  ideas  in- 
herited from  the  middle  and  dark  ages,  and  side  with  the 
interpretations  that  modern  knowledge  has  given  of  man 
and  of  his  relations  to  the  world  and  to  God.  We  shall 
then  open  these  biographies  of  Jesus  and  find  everything 
natural,  human,  reasonable.  No  theological  mists  shall  hang 
over  that  life  to  distort  its  meaning  or  supernaturalize  its 
character.  "We  shall  know  that  there  was  no  fall,  no  in- 
herited guilt,  and  therefore  no  divine  anger  to  be  ap- 

24 


peased,  and  no  need  of  a  supernatural  mediator.  We  shall 
look  upon  those  pages  as  human  writings  with  the  errors 
and  misinterpretations  incident  to  human  authorship.  We 
shall  see  in  these  strange  accounts  of  a  miraculous  birth, 
of  singing  angels,  of  the  raising  of  the  dead,  only  the 
wonder  stories  that  blossomed  in  the  imagination  of  lov- 
ing but  credulous  disciples."  We  shall  lose  the  unnat- 
ural and  impossible  Christ  of  theology ;  we  shall  find  the 
real  and  living  Jesus  of  history ;  Jesus  in  the  human  line 
of  inheritance,  born  as  any  other  man  is  born.  It  is  not 
strange  that  men  have  worshipped  Him  as  God.  He  was 
the  highest  and  best  of  the  sons  of  men,  summing  up 
the  best  that  the  race  is  capable  of — man,  the  promise  of 
what  is  to  come.  Divine,  yes,  as  all  men  are  divine ;  only 
in  Him  there  would  seem  to  be  all  of  the  life  of  God  that 
could  be  poured  into  a  human  soul — so  that  he  was  the 
fullest  expression  of  the  divinity  of  man,  and  of  the  hu- 
manity of  God. 

But  whatever  our  views  about  Jesus,  is  it  not  clear 
that  the  main  thing,  the  important  thing,  is  that  we  be- 
believe  in  Him?  We  may  hold  very  different  ideas  as  to 
Jesus'  relation  to  his  Father,  as  to  the  doctrines  men  have 
put  into  creeds  about  Him,  but  it  must  be  clear  to  us  all 
that  to  believe  in  Him  and  to  follow  Him  it  is  not  necessary 
we  should  hold  the  same  views  about  Him. 

And  now  I  ask,  what  is  it  this  life  of  Jesus  says  to  us? 
Is  it  not  clear  that  to  follow  Jesus  Christ  is  something 
more  than  to  subscribe  to  a  creed,  take  part  in  public 
worship,  support  by  money  or  service  the  institutions 
of  religion?  Is  it  not  clear  that  it  is  more  than  what  we 
commonly  call  religion?  It  is  deliberately  to  consecrate 
oneself  to  the  cause  of  righteousness  and  truth  in  the 
world,  cost  what  that  consecration  may;  to  engage  in 
a  life  campaign  against  every  form  of  iniquity — political, 
industrial,  individual — wheresoever  that  campaign  may 
lead.  It  is  to  make  material  civilization  take  its  second 
and  rightful  place.  It  is  never  to  take  the  standard  of 
one's  age  as  one's  own,  even  for  the  sake  of  improving 

25 


it.  It  is  to  (challenge  every  form  of  corruption  in  high 
places  or  in  popular  prejudices,  or  expressed  in  popular 
clamor.  It  means  for  the  pulpit  to  rebuke  Phari- 
saism in  its  own  pews — the  press  to  attack  preju- 
dices in  its  own  party.  It  means  for  the  lawyer  to 
be  a  minister  of  justice,  the  manufacturer  to  hate  adul- 
terations, the  mechanic  and  laborer  to  hate  dishonest  work. 
It  means  an  infinite  pity  for  the  suffering,  the  poor,  the 
unworthy.  And  it  means  much  more. 

How  rankly,  intolerably  false  it  is  to  hear  men  say,  as 
Christendom  has  said  these  2000  years:  Now  I  know  I 
am  saved  because  I  have  the  blood  of  Christ,  the  sacra- 
ments of  Christ,  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  to  intercede  for  me! 
How  pitiable  to  see  men  and  women  who  fancy  that  to 
bow  at  His  name  is  enough;  to  kneel  before  the  crucifix 
is  enough;  to  repeat  his  own  prayer  over  and  over  again 
is  enough;  to  hold  this  or  that  view  of  his  person  is 
enough;  to  acknowledge  his  supremacy  is  enough!  How 
pitiable !  And  yet  here  is  a  profound  truth  beneath  a 
splendid  lie.  To  bow  one's  own  haughty  selfishness  be- 
fore the  divine  meekness — to  kneel  in  awe  before  the 
presence  of  the  life  that  courted  death  thus  to  accomplish 
its  holy  purpose;  to  say  "Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven" 
with  the  tender  trust  that  he  put  into  that  prayer ;  to 
proclaim  the  perfect  man,  the  anointed  Son  of  God  as 
one's  hero-pattern ;  surely,  this  is,  after  all,  to  be  saved ! 
To  hold  that  cross  ever  before  one's  eyes,  is  not  that  the 
banner  leading  thousands  to  the  crusades?  Is  not  that 
the  flaming  vision  that  led  Constantine,  that  led  Arnold 
the  schoolmaster,  that  led  Gordon  the  soldier,  that  led  Pea- 
body  the  merchant,  that  led  Dorothea  Dix,  the  frail  woman, 
that  led  Robertson  the  preacher,  that  led  Milton  the  poet, 
and  shone  on  the  pathway  of  the  Pilgrim  who  overcame 
sea  and  savage  to  found  an  American  commonwealth? 
Wherever  I  see  a  man  of  passionate  mould  and  fiery  blood 
making  himself  gentle ;  wherever  I  see  men  who  might  be 
idle,  working  seriously;  wherever  the  scholar  seeks  and 
proclaims  the  truth  as  he  sees  it;  wherever  the  soldier 

26 


is  merciful ;  wherever  the  rich  are  simple  and  gracious ; 
wherever  the  poor  are  unaffected  and  cheerful;  wherever 
sorrow  smiles  through  its  tears;  where  disappointment  and 
failure  still  work  on  in  trust ;  wherever  sin  is  defeated  and 
hope  is  triumphant — there  one  sees  the  Cross  again,  bright 
with  the  light  that  never  fades,  bringing  the  blessing  of 
God. 

"Behold  Him  now  where  he  comes! 

Not  the  Christ  of  our  subtle  creeds, 
But  the  light  of  our  hearts — of  our  homes, 

Of  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  needs ; 
The  brother  of  want  and  blame, 

The  lover  of  women  and  men, 
With  a  love  that  puts  to  shame 

All  passions  of  mortal  ken. 
"Ah,  no!     Thou  life  of  the  heart, 
Never  shalt  thou  depart! 
Not  till  the  leaven  of  God 
Shall  lighten  each  human  clod; 
Not  till  the  world  shall  climb 
To  thy  height  serene,  sublime, 
Shall  the  Christ  who  enters  our  door, 
Pass  to  return  no  more." 


27 


By 

The  Rev.  C.  F.  Aked,  W.,  LL.D. 
Sunday  Morning,  February  /,  J9J4 


JESUS  CHRIST  AS  PREACHED  BY  THE  LIBERAL 
SCHOOL  OF  MODERN  THEOLOGY. 

In  Him  was  life;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men. 

John   1;4. 

Nearly  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  in  a  remote  corner 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  in  an  Asiatic  province  bordering 
upon  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  appeared. 
He  belonged  to  a  working-class  family.  When  He  was 
about  thirty  years  of  age  He  abandoned  His  day  labor  and 
began  to  teach  and  preach.  Soon  the  churches  closed  their 
doors  against  Him.  He  gathered  crowds  and  preached  to 
them  in  the  streets  and  fields.  In  less  than  three  years 
He  was  arrested,  charged  with  sedition,  and  after  a  short 
trial  in  the  midnight  hours  of  a  turbulent  week — a  trial 
the  legality  of  which  is  more  than  disputable — He  was  put 
to  death.  Within  three  days  a  few  women  and  many  men 
declared  that  He  was  not  dead ;  that  He  had  risen  from 
the  dead;  and  that  they  had  seen  Him. 

Now  the  story  of  this  life  has  profoundly  affected  the 
life  of  the  world.  As  a  matter  of  fact  civilisation  has 
grown  up  round  the  name  of  Christ.  Historians,  Christian 
or  non-Christian,  have  to  speak  of  the  movements  and 
developments  of  civilisation  since  the  death  of  Jesus  as 
"Christian  civilisation."  This  period  of  the  world's  history 
is  called  the  Christian  era.  Every  letter  which  you  wrote 
yesterday  was  dated  and  every  cheque  which  you  will 
sign  to-morrow  will  be  dated  from  the  year  of  His  birth. 
You  may  be  a  Jew  in  San  Francisco  or  a  Christian  in 
Chicago  or  a  Pagan  in  New  York  or  a  Christian  Scientist 
in  Boston  or  an  Atheist  in  Paris,  but  you  will  sign  your 
letters  and  date  your  cheques  from  the  year  of  His  birth. 
You  may  write  a  book  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that 

31 


Jesus  never  lived;  and  when  you  get  the  proof-sheets 
from  the  printer  you  will  find  that  on  the  title  page  in 
the  imprint  has  been  inserted  the  year  of  publication, 
dated  from  the  birth  of  One  you  have  tried  to  prove  had 
no  existence !  Cities  have  been  founded,  have  flour- 
ished, and  been  swept  away,  kingdoms  have  been  con- 
solidated or  torn  to  pieces,  empires  have  crumbled  to  dust 
and  ashes  and  others  have  arisen,  solely  by  reason  of 
forces  upheaved  by  His  influence,  by  the  words  He  spoke, 
and  by  the  spirit  He  bequeathed. 

Interest  in  Him  and  in  His  work  is  not  waning.  Four- 
teen years  ago  the  Dowager  Empress  of  China  decreed  the 
death  of  every  Christian  found  within  her  realm.  You 
know  the  story :  the  Boxer  rising,  martyrdoms,  massacres, 
bloodshed  unspeakable.  Less  than  twelve  months  ago  the 
rulers  of  the  new  Republic  of  China  officially,  as  a  Govern- 
ment utterance,  asked  for  the  prayers  of  Christian  people 
everywhere,  prayers  for  wisdom  and  divine  guidance  and 
the  blessing  of  God  upon  the  Republic.  There  are  more 
Christians  in  the  world  to-day  than  there  were  yesterday; 
there  will  be  more  to-morrow  than  there  are  to-day. 

Reflection  upon  the  character  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  has 
won  from  the  thinkers  of  the  ages,  not  by  any  means  to 
be  ranked  amongst  His  professed  followers,  tributes  which 
exhaust  the  powers  of  praise. 

Goethe,  for  instance,  looked  for  advance  in  every  field 
of  human  enterprise  save  in  one.  "The  moral  majesty  of 
the  Gospels,"  he  said,  "could  never  be  excelled." 

In  this  Goethe  was  but  echoing  the  deliberately  ex- 
pressed opinion  of  Spinoza,  who  saw  in  Christ  "the  temple 
of  man,  where  God  stands  most  perfectly  revealed." 

Strauss,  too,  held  up  Jesus  to  admiration  "as  the  su- 
preme religious  genius  of  time,  who  created  and  embodied 
the  absolute  religion." 

This  phrase  about  the  "absolute  religion"  recalls  Renan's 
great  words  to  the  effect  that  on  the  day  that  Jesus  talked 
with  the  woman  of  Samaria  by  Jacob's  well  "He  founded 

32 


the  pure  worship  of  all  ages,  of  all  lands ;  not  the  best 
religion,  but  the  absolute  religion,  and  was  truly  Son  of 
God." 

Rousseau  in  his  theatrical  way  contrasted  the  death  of 
Socrates  with  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  said  that  while 
Socrates  died  like  a  hero  Jesus  died  like  a  god. 

In  less  flamboyant  speech  John  Stuart  Mill  toward  the 
close  of  his  life  declared  that  after  all  one  can  do  no 
better,  when  puzzled  as  to  conduct,  than  ask  what  Jesus 
would  do  under  such  conditions — and  do  that ! 

Obviously  such  a  life  cannot  be  understood  in  a  moment 
nor  defined  in  a  phrase.  I  love  to  fall  back  upon  this 
mystic  word  taken  from  the  prologue  to  John's  Gospel : 
In  Him  was  life;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men.  I  see 
in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the  Christ  of  God,  the  Eternal  Son 
of  the  Eternal  Father  of  us  all.  He  is  the  consummation 
of  the  divine  purpose  of  redemption. 

The  story  which  seems  to  begin  with  the  birth  at 
Bethelem  really  begins  with  the  postulate  of  all  religion, 
God!  In  the  beginning — God!  But  the  Creator  of  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  could  not  tolerate  a  solitary  splen- 
dor. Our  minds  refuse  to  think  of  Him  existent  and  all 
else  non-existent.  He  utters  Himself  in  the  material  uni- 
verse ;  earth  and  air  and  sea,  suns  and  spheres  and  stellar 
space,  are  His  efforts  toward  self-expression.  Upon  this 
planet  He  calls  into  being  Man.  He  speaks  in  Man ;  He 
speaks  to  men.  The  human  family  increases,  multiplies, 
replenishes  the  earth.  Nations  thrive  and  branch  from 
clime  to  clime.  And  still  God  speaks  to  men.  To  the 
sages  of  China,  the  dreamers  of  India,  the  warrier-seers  of 
Persia,  the  poets,  artists,  philosophers  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
came  the  Word  of  the  Lord ;  and  in  every  nation  arose 
prophets  who  spoke  for  Him,  saints  who  lived  for  Him, 
and  martyrs  who  died  for  Him.  Men  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew  race  caught  His  great  accents  clearest  and  spoke 
them  trumpet-tongued  to  the  world.  They  are  Jews  and 
we  are  Christians — but  we  are  what  they  have  made  us. 

33 


Their  literature  we  call  not  a  literature,  but  a  book, 
and  not  a  book  but  the  Book,  the  World's  Book,  God's 
Book,  the  Bible.  Their  genius  was  more  glorious  than 
that  of  the  race  which  gave  Pheidias  and  Plato  to  the 
world ;  theirs  was  the  genius  of  religion ;  and  their  religion 
is  the  imperishable  possession  of  mankind.  Their  "stern 
monotheism"  has  become  our  belief  in  the  immanence  of 
the  Living  God.  Their  passion  for  righteousness  is  our 
faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Their  Messianic  Hope  is 
our  assurance  of  immortality  in  Christ  the  Resurrection 
and  the  Life.  God  having  thus,  in  divers  portions  and  in 
divers  manners,  spoken  of  old  time  unto  the  fathers  of  the 
race  by  prophets,  has,  in  the  climax  of  His  incarnation, 
spoken  unto  us  by  a  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  who  has  taught  us 
to  call  Him  Father,  who  is  Himself  Mind  of  the  Father's 
Mind  and  Thought  of  the  Father's  Thought,  who  is  to  us 
the  Messiah  of  the  Jews,  the  Desire  of  all  Nations,  the  Hope 
of  the  World,  the  Saviour  of  the  Race,  the  Redeemer  of 
Mankind. 

Some  of  these  words  call  for  definition.  It  would  be 
pleasant  to  continue  this  statement  of  the  things  most 
assuredly  believed  amongst  us  in  this  spirit,  in  the  mood 
of  positive  affirmation,  omitting  the  negative  propositions, 
speaking  only  of  that  which  is.  It  could  be  done.  But  one 
has  to  take  into  account  the  temperamental  necessities  of 
many  different  persons,  and  for  some  it  is  necessary  to 
bring  into  prominence  the  things  which  are  excluded  or 
omitted.  The  newest  and  most  useful  of  the  dictionaries 
prides  itself  upon  the  introduction  of  what  it  calls 
antonyms ;  that  is  to  say,  the  opposite  meanings  of  words, 
as  though  it  were  to  define  "dark"  by  "not  light"  or 
"sour"  by  "not  sweet."  So  I  call  your  attention  to  the 
words  that  are  not  used. 

It  is  not  said  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God.  That  is  a  state- 
ment of  some  of  the  ancient  creeds.  No  New  Testatment 
writer  ever  spoke  of  Jesus  Christ  as  God.  It  would  have 


34 


seemed  to  Evangelist  or  Apostle  an  unheard-of  blasphemy. 
He  would  have  rent  his  clothes  and  flung  ashes  upon  his 
head  in  horror  at  the  suggestion.  I  accept  and  make  my 
own  and  glory  in  every  ascription  of  praise  which  the 
inspired  writers  employed,  every  word  of  adoration,  of 
love  and  worship.  Bring  me  any  word  of  any  New 
Testament  writer,  with  its  largest,  fullest,  loftiest  worship 
of  our  Lord.  I  accept  it,  make  it  my  own,  glory  in  it. 
But  I  will  not  be  coerced  into  the  use  of  language  em- 
ployed by  the  old  creed-builders  unjustified  by  the  lan- 
guage of  the  New  Testament.  "Very  God  of  very  God," 
you  may  go  on  repeating  as  you  repeat  the  Nicene  Creed. 
But  you  must  not  think  that  you  are  quoting  the  New 
Testament.  Creeds  are  changed  in  the  changing  centuries! 
When  the  Council  of  Constantinople  had  done  with  the 
creed  set  forth  by  the  Council  of  Nicsea,  of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-eight  words  in  the  Constantinopolitan 
Creed  only  thirty-three  had  been  taken  from  the  Nicene ! 
And  Dean  Stanley,  one  of  the  noblest  sons  of  that  Church 
which  clings  to  creeds,  says  curiously : 

"We  might,  if  we  chose,  vex  ourselves  by  the  thought  that  every 
time  we  recite  the  Creed  in  its  present  altered  form  we  have  de- 
parted from  the  intention  of  the  Fathers  of  Nioea,  and  incurred 
deprivation  and  excommunication  at  the  hands  of  the  Fathers  of 
Ephesus.  We  might  insist  on  returning  to  the  only  Catholic  form 
of  the  Creed,  such  as  it  was  before  it  was  corrupted  at  Con- 
stantinople, Chalcedon,  Toledo,  and  London.  .  .  .  The  fact  that 
the  whole  Christian  world  has  altered  the  Creed  of  Nicaea,  and 
broken  the  decree  of  Ephesus,  without  ceasing  to  be  Catholic  or 
Christian,  is  a  decisive  proof  that  common  sense,  after  all,  is  the 
supreme  arbiter  and  corrective  even  of  (Ecumenical  Councils." 

It  is  wiser  and  safer  to  speak  of  Scriptural  realities  in 
Scriptural  phraseology.  No  Scripture  writer  ever  spoke 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  God.* 


*Romans  9;5  must  not  be  misunderstood.  It  is  misunderstood  when 
read  from  the  versions  in  common  use.  It  is  a  phrase  in  the  nature 
of  a  doxology.  Dr.  Moffatt's  translation  gives  it  correctly :  "Blessed 
for  evermore  be  the  God  who  is  over  all !  Amen." 

Dr.    James    Denney,    the    leading   theologian    of    Great    Britain,    a 

35 


The  word  "Trinity"  is  not  employed.  "God  in  three 
persons,  blessed  Trinity,"  is  a  line  from  a  popular 
hymn  and  may  represent  the  thought  and  the  words  of 
the  ancient  creeds.  But  "Trinity"  is  not  in  the  New 
Testament,  neither  is  any  phrase  about  "three  persons  in 
the  Godhead."  It  has  been  found  helpful  to  think  of  a 
three-fold  manifestation  of  God:  as  the  Creative  Intelli- 
gence, incarnate  in  the  Redeeming  Son,  operative  in  the 
continuing  activities  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  may  be 
more  helpful  to  you  to  think  of  God  in  this  way  than  to 
confuse  thought  with  phrases  about  three  persons  in  one. 
This  morning  before  you  left  home  you  acted  as  a  father. 
To-morrow  morning  in  your  office  you  will  act  as  an 
employer  of  labor.  The  next  day  it  may  be,  called  upon 
jury  service  or  casting  your  ballot,  you  will  act  as  a 
citizen.  Father,  employer  of  labor,  citizen :  you  act  in 
three  capacities ;  your  individuality  is  one.  We  may  think 
of  God  as  the  Creator  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  the 
Father  who  thinks  and  loves ;  we  may  see  in  Jesus  Christ 
the  incarnation  of  the  Father's  thought  and  love ;  in  our 
own  hearts  without  the  aid  of  Church  or  preacher,  creed 
or  ritual,  we  may  realise  the  presence  of  God.  So  we  may 
think  and  so  we  may  speak  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit  without  introducing  the  confused  and  confusing 
and  un-Scriptural  speech  concerning  a  "Trinity"  or  "three 
persons  in  one  God." 


Presbyterian,  Professor  of  New  Testament  Language,  Literature,  and 
Theology  in  the  United  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow,  commenting 
upon  this  verse  ("The  Expositor's  Greek  Testament,"  Vol.  2,  1900) 
anticipates  Dr.  Moffatt's  reading  and  says: 

"If  we  ask  ourselves  point  blank,  whether  Paul,  as  we  know 
his  mind  from  his  epistles,  would  express  his  sense  of  Christ's  great- 
ness by  calling  Him  'God  blessed  for  ever,'  it  seems  to  me  almost 
impossible  to  answer  in  the  affirmative.  Such  an  assertion  is  not 
on  the  same  plane  with  the  conception  of  Christ  which  meets  us 
everywhere  in  the  Apostle's  writings;  and  though  there  is  some  ir- 
regularity in  the  grammar,  and  perhaps  some  difficulty  in  seeing  the 
point  of  a  doxology,  I  agree  with  those  who  would  put  a  colon  or 
a  period  at  'flesh,'  and  make  the  words  that  follow  refer  not  to  Christ 
but  to  the  Father." 

36 


Here  the  question  will  obtrude  itself  upon  your  minds : 
"Is  it  not  said  that  Jesus  was  born  in  some  way  different 
from  us?  Was  he  not  born  without  a  father?  Has  not 
the  statement  of  the  creeds,  'conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,'  Scripture  to  support  it?" 

The  story  of  the  virgin-birth  of  Jesus  has  priceless 
value  for  the  Church.  It  has  made  its  way  into  our 
creeds,  our  hymns,  our  Christmas  legends.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  imagine  the  centuries  and  the  ages  and  the 
world  of  our  day  without  the  story  of  the  Virgin-mother 
and  her  Child.  Yet  the  value  of  the  birth-stories  lies,  not 
'in  their  statement  of  fact,  but  in  their  effort  to  construct 
a  theory.  In  plain  words,  the  stories  of  the  virgin-birth 
of  Jesus  in  two  of  the  Gospels  and  the  dogmatic  assertion 
of  the  creeds  represent  the  attempt  of  the  Church,  too 
early  made,  in  its  fresh  impulses  of  adoration,  to  explain 
the  inexplicable  personality  of  Jesus. 

It  was  not  the  attempt  of  the  whole  Church.  It  was 
not  the  attempt  of  the  complete  Apostolic  body.  We  have 
four  Gospels.  From  two  of  them  the  birth-stories  are 
missing.  Matthew  and  Luke  preserve  the  narrative  of 
the  miraculous  birth.  Mark  and  John  do  not.  Mark  is  our 
earliest  Gospel.  He  has  not  a  word  to  say  about  the 
virgin-birth.  John  has  most  to  say  about  the  incarnation. 
From  the  Gospel  which  bears  his  name  we  take  this  noble 
text:  In  Him  was  life;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men. 
But  John  does  not  mention  the  incidents  connected  with 
our  Saviour's  birth.  Luke's  Gospel,  as  Luke  himself  tells 
us,  is  a  compilation  from  previously  existing  material. 
Luke  had  Matthew  or  Matthew's  original  before  him  as  he 
wrote;  so  that  the  sole  authority  for  the  stories  in  the  four 
Gospels  is  Matthew.  And  even  so  far  as  Matthew's 
Gospel  is  concerned  the  case  is  by  no  means  clear.  In 
the  latest  translation  of  the  New  Testament  Dr.  Moffatt 
accepts  without  comment  the  reading  from  Von  Soden's 
edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testament  and  boldly  translates 

37 


285320 


(Chap.  1,  v.  16),  "Joseph,  to  whom  the  virgin  Mary  was 
betrothed,  the  father  of  Jesus." 

It  was  the  flash  of  Peter's  insight  and  the  flight  of 
his  inspiration  which  aroused  such  joy  and  thanksgiving 
in  the  heart  of  Jesus  when  at  Caesarea,  Peter,  speaking  as 
man  had  never  spoken  before  and  as  perhaps  man  has 
never  spoken  since,  burst  forth,  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the 
Son  of  the  Living  God";  yet  Peter  makes  speeches  and 
preaches  sermons  which  are  recorded  and  writes  epistles, 
but  never  mentions  the  birth-stories.  Paul  lived  and 
loved  and  died,  won  barbarian  tribes  for  Christ,  argued 
with  the  university  men  of  Athens  and  with  patrician  and 
plebian  in  Rome,  compelled  the  admiration  of  Roman 
judges  and  senators  and  the  love  of  soldiers,  slaves,  and 
slum-dwellers  in  the  City  of  the  Seven  Hills,  and  caused 
the  Cross  of  Christ  to  flame  through  the  darkness  of 
Paganism  in  every  city  of  the  Mediterranean — but,  as 
far  as  the  record  tells,  he  never  once  referred  to  the  virgin- 
birth.  One  of  two  conclusions  is  obvious  and  indis- 
putable. Either  Mark,  John,  Peter,  and  Paul  never  heard 
about  the  miraculous  birth ;  or  else,  being  familiar  with 
the  story,  not  one  of  them  felt  that  it  was  necessary 
to  repeat  it. 

We  cannot  hope  to  love  Christ  more  tenderly  than  did 
the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved.  We  cannot  hope  to 
preach  Christ  more  faithfully,  bravely,  and  effectively 
than  did  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  We  cannot  write  a 
better  Gospel  than  Mark's.  We  cannot  rise  to  the  height 
of  a  loftier  inspiration  than  that  of  Peter.  And  these  all 
were  what  they  were,  did  what  they  did,  lived  their  splen- 
did lives,  died  their  glorious  deaths,  and  they  sit  on 
thrones,  giving  laws  to  humankind ;  but  they  never  once 
found  it  necessary  to  ground  their  faith  in  the  virgin- 
birth  of  Jesus  nor  fortify  their  preaching  by  it.  It  is  not 
open  to  question  that  these  men  believed  in  the  divinity 
of  Christ.  One  might  almost  say  that  they  believed  in 
nothing  else!  If  they  did  not  passionately  accept  Him  as 

38 


divine,  if  they  did  not  believe  in  His  divinity  with  all 
their  heart  and  with  all  their  head,  language  has  no  mean- 
ing and  history  is  a  riddle.  They  believed — and  their 
belief  turned  the  world  upside  down. 

If  you  are  helped  by  the  story  of  the  miraculous  birth 
as  it  appears  in  Luke  and  in  Matthew,  so  be  it.  If  it 
helps  you,  hold  to  it.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  choose 
to  say,  as  for  myself  I  do  say,  "I  am  on  the  side  of  Mark 
and  John,  of  Peter  and  Paul ;  they  could  accept  His 
divinity  and  serve  Him  through  life  and  death  without 
grounding  their  faith  upon  the  stories  of  the  virgin-birth 
and  so  can  I" — if  a  devout  student  of  Scripture  speaks  in 
this  sense  to  us  to-day  Christian  charity  is  bound  to 
accept  that  view  as  permissible  within  the  limits  of  our 
Christian  liberty.* 

*  There  is  nothing  strange  in  this  view  of  the  birth  of  Jesus. 
What  is  strange  is  that  persons  familiar  with  the  life  of  the  Churches 
should  find  anything  strange  in  it.  Dr.  Washington  Gladden,  in  his 
grand  old  age,  has  just  published  a  volume  entitled  "Present  Day 
Theology."  The  following  extracts  are  taken  from  pp.  142-3 : 

"The  Scriptural  proofs  of  the  doctrine  of  the  virgin  birth  are 
rather  dubious.  In  only  two  of  the  New  Testament  books  is  it  re- 
ferred to.  'The  Gospel  of  Matthew  and  the  Gospel  of  Luke  contain 
allusions  to  it.  The  Gospel  of  Mark,  which  is,  by  all,  now  admitted 
to  be  the  earliest  gospel,  and  the  foundation  of  both  Matthew  and 
Luke,  does  not  mention  it.  The  Gospel  of  John,  which  is  regarded 
as  the  chief  proof  of  Christ's  divinity,  has  not  heard  of  it.  The 
Apostle  Paul,  who  is  the  author  of  thirteen  of  the  twenty-eight  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  never  speaks  of  it.  No  word  of  Jesus  re- 
ported in  any  of  the  gospels  alludes  to  it.  There  are  two  genealogies 
of  Jesus,  in  Matthew  and  Luke,  and  both  of  them  make  Jesus  the 
son  of  Joseph.  The  story  of  the  virgin  birth  in  Matthew  and  Luke 
contradict  each  other  at  several  points.  There  seems,  certainly,  to 
be  much  justification  for  the  conclusion  of  many  great  Christian 
scholars  that  the  stories  in  Matthew  and  Luke  are  late  legendary 
additions  to  these  gospels. 

"I  confess  that  I  should  be  glad  to  know  that  He  was  one  with 
us  in  the  origin  of  His  life  as  in  the  maintenance  of  it.  It  seems 
to  me  that  this  idea  of  the  virgin  birth  tends  to  throw  some  dis- 
credit upon  the  sacredness  of  marriage,  which  is  a  tendency  to  be 
deprecated." 

Dr.  Gladden  quotes  from  Dr.  Mackintosh,  a  Scotch  Presbyterian, 

59 


What  then  do  we  mean  by  the  Divinity  of  Christ?  In 
what  sense  is  He  divine? 

In  every  hyman  being  there  is  somewhat  of  the  divine 
nature;  in  Him  that  nature  has  taken  full  and  complete 
possession  of  the  whole  being  and  God  has  tabernacled 
in  the  flesh.  In  all  of  us  there  is  divinity  and  divinity 
of  the  same  nature  as  was  in  Christ;  but  His  being  is 
full,  saturated  with  that  divineness  whose  lightest  impress 
is  all  that  some  of  us  have  known.  We  are  all  sons  of 
God ;  but  once  in  the  history  of  the  world  the  ever  Living 
God  took  entire  possession  of  One  born  of  woman,  and 
manifested  Himself  as  never  before  or  since  for  the 
redemption  of  the  race;  and  the  Christ  is  supremely  the 
Son  of  God. 

I  know  that  many  of  you  are  ready  with  the  question : 
"Then  is  the  difference  between  us  and  Jesus  Christ  one 
only  of  degree  and  not  of  kind?"  I  beg  you  to  consider 
very  seriously  the  meaning  of  the  words  you  use. 
You  employ  them  so  often  that  you  think  they  convey 
a  meaning  to  you ;  but  they  do  not.  A  difference  of  what 
you  call  "kind"  is  most  frequently  created  by  an  accumu- 
lation of  differences  of  what  you  call  "degree."  What  is 
the  origin  of  species — the  origin  of  kinds?  Variations 
amongst  individual  members  of  the  species,  variations 
transmitted,  becoming  more  marked,  accumulating  until 
you  have  a  new  "kind." 

Consider  this:  even  preserving  your  own  words  "de- 
gree" and  "kind,"  then  an  accumulation  of  differences  of 
"degree"  is  often  more  than  a  difference  in  "kind."  For 
instance,  if  you  were  to  take  a  savage  digged  out  of  the 
heart  of  some  cannibal  tribe,  the  lowest,  most  undeveloped 
specimen  of  a  man  that  you  could  find ;  if  you  were  to  set 
him  side  by  side  with  a  gorilla  or  baboon,  one  of  the 

the  writer  of  a  book  which  Dr.  Gladden  describes  as  "one  of  the 
most  staunchly  orthodox  books  on  the  Person  of  Christ."  Dr.  Mack- 
intosh writes :  "For  my  own  part  I  should  not  think  of  regarding 
an  explicit  belief  in  the  virgin  birth  of  our  Lord  as  essential  to 
Christian  faith ;  otherwise  St.  Paul  was  no  Christian." 

40 


higher  apes;  is  it  not  likely  that  you  would  find  a  greater 
difference  between  the  lowest  kind  of  man  and  the  highest 
kind  of  ape  than  you  would  find  between  that  unde- 
veloped specimen  of  a  man  and,  let  us  say,  an  Emerson  or 
a  Lincoln,  a  Gladstone  or  a  Browning?  It  seems  simple 
to  say  that  the  difference  between  the  baboon  and  the  sav- 
age is  a  difference  of  "kind"  and  the  difference  between  the 
savage  and  Plato  is  a  difference  of  "degree."  But  ponder 
quietly  the  sentence  I  have  just  employed:  an  accumulation 
of  differences  of  degree  is  often  more  than  a  difference  of  kind. 
Jesus  Christ  is  different  from  us,  peerless,  unique ;  in 
Him  is  a  fullness  of  divine  nature,  so  exceptional,  so 
supernal,  that  He  stands  alone.  If  you  care  to  mark 
these  differences  by  varying  phrases,  then  it  is  easy  to 
say  that  in  us  is  divinity ;  Christ  is  divine.  Or,  if  you  will, 
you  may  say  that  you  believe  in  the  divineness  of  man  and 
in  the  divinity  of  Christ. 

In  what  sense  is  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour?  What  must 
we  think  of  the  Atonement? 

Now  observe  once  more  that  the  word  "atonement" 
does  not  appear  in  the  New  Testament.  And  again  I  re- 
mark that  it  is  wisest  and  safest  to  speak  of  Scriptural 
realities  in  Scriptural  language.  The  New  Testament  uses 
the  word  "reconcile"  and  "reconciliation."  Jesus  Christ 
reconciles  us  to  God.  He  does  not  appease  God's  anger: 
there  was  no  anger  to  appease.  He  does  not  propitiate 
God :  God  was  always  propitious.  God's  willingness  to 
forgive  us  was  not  procured  by  the  death  of  Jesus :  He 
was  always  willing  to  forgive.  God  does  not  love  us 
because  Jesus  died  for  us:  Jesus  died  for  us  because  God 
loves  us.  Christ  does  not  reconcile  the  Father  to  us :  the 
Father  never  needed  to  be  reconciled.  He  reconciles  us  to 
the  Father. 

The  distinction  is  of  enormous  importance.  If  it  were 
possible  to  draw  a  line  at  any  point  between  the  old 
theology  and  the  new  it  would  have  to  be  drawn  here. 
The  question  is :  "Was  the  atonement  something  done 

41 


toward  God  or  toward  men?"  The  answer  which  the 
preaching  of  our  day  makes  is  perfectly  clear.  It  is  some- 
thing done  toward  men.  It  effects  no  change  in  the  atti- 
tude of  God  toward  us,  for  God  loves  us  and  God  is  Love. 
It  effects  a  change  in  our  attitude  toward  God,  for  we 
were  disobedient,  unfilial,  ungracious.  And  through  the 
Cross  of  Christ  and  all  that  it  represents  we  turn  to  seek 
filial  relations  with  God. 

Let  there  be  no  mistake  about  this.  Much  depends  upon 
it.  Let  us  make  our  appeal  to  that  great  doctor  of  the 
Christian  Church,  the  Apostle  Paul  himself.  Language 
could  be  neither  clearer  nor  more  emphatic  than  his. 
Weigh  carefully  these  extracts  from  his  writings : 

Romans  5;  10,  11 : 

"For  if,  while  we  were  enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to 
God  through  the  death  of  His  Son,  much  more,  being 
reconciled,  shall  we  be  saved  by  His  life ;  and  not  only 
so,  but  we  also  rejoice  in  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  through  whom  we  have  now  received  the  recon- 
ciliation." 

Ephesians  2;  16: 

"And  might  reconcile  them  both  in  one  body  (Jew  and 
Gentile)  unto  God  through  the  Cross,  having  slain  the 
enmity  thereby." 

2  Corinthians  5;  18-20: 

"But  all  things  are  of  God,  who  reconciled  us  to  Him- 
self through  Christ,  and  gave  unto  us  the  ministry  of 
reconciliation;  to  wit,  that  God  was  in  Christ  reconciling 
the  world  unto  Himself,  not  reckoning  unto  them  their 
trespasses,  and  having  committed  unto  us  the  word  of 
reconciliation.  We  are  ambassadors  therefore  on  behalf  of 
Christ,  as  though  God  were  entreating  by  us :  we  beseech 
you  on  behalf  of  Christ,  be  ye  reconciled  to  God." 

Colossians  1 ;  20-22 : 

"Through  Him  to  reconcile  all  things  unto  Himself, 
having  made  peace  through  the  blood  of  His  Cross; 
through  Him,  I  say,  whether  things  upon  the  earth,  or 
things  in  the  heavens.  And  you,  being  in  time  past 

42 


alienated  and  enemies  in  your  mind  in  your  evil  works, 
yet  now  hath  He  reconciled  in  the  body  of  His  flesh 
through  death,  to  present  you  holy  and  without  blemish 
and  unreprovable  before  Him." 

To  return :  I  have  used  the  word  "atonement."  I  have 
done  it  deliberately.  For  I  believe  in  the  Atonement. 
Do  you  know  what  it  means?  It  is  at-one-ment.  This  is 
not  a  trick,  a  mere  splitting  up  of  the  word  into  its 
syllables.  This  is  what  the  word  is  in  its  birth,  in  its 
origin,  in  its  essential  meaning.  It  means  at-one-ment, 
bringing  together  persons  who  were  separated,  making 
them  "at  one."  Tyndal  speaks  of  Christ  as  "an  advocate, 
intercessor,  or  at-one-maker  between  God  and  man." 
Atonement  is  a  comparatively  new  word,  probably  not  older 
than  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Shakespeare 
uses  it  frequently.  Desdemona  says  that  she  would 
like  to  atone  her  husband  and  Cassio,  meaning  she  will 
try  to  get  them  to  patch  up  their  quarrel  and  be  "at  one." 
Buckingham  in  "Richard  III"  tells  the  queen  that  the 
king  is  seeking  to  make  atonement  between  Gloucester 
and  her  brothers. 

This  is  the  real  sense  of  the  Atonement.  We  who  were 
in  time  past  alienated  and  enemies  are  now  "at  one"  with 
God. 

Christ  reconciles  us  to  God  by  revealing  to  us  the  true 
nature  of  God.  Did  we  think  Him  harsh,  unjust,  or  even 
indifferent?  He  is  our  Father  and  He  loves  us.  The 
first  words  of  Jesus  in  His  earthly  life  and  His  last 
breathe  the  Father's  name.  He  never  speaks  to  Him  by 
any  other  name  than  "Father."  Five  prayers  of  His  are 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament.  In  each  one  God  is 
addressed  as  "Father"  and  in  no  other  way.  In  one 
prayer  which  is  contained  in  three  verses  of  Matthew's 
Gospel  "Father"  occurs  five  times.  In  such  terms  He 
would  have  His  followers  pray. 

The  Father  loves  His  children,  loves  all  His  children, 
desires  all  His  children  to  live  in  love  with  Him.  He  seeks 
and  saves  His  children.  With  Him  "lost"  only  means 

43 


"not  found  yet."  The  Cross  represents  an  agony  of  love 
in  the  Father's  heart,  His  desire  to  seek  and  save  His 
children.  Jesus  Christ  is  our  Saviour  and  our  Redeemer 
because  He  is  the  supreme  revelation  of  the  Father's  will 
and  the  Father's  love. 

A  question  not  of  the  first  importance  is  nevertheless  of 
sufficient  consequence  to  claim  an  answer  here.  May  we 
think  of  Jesus  as  a  miracle- worker?  What  of  the  New 
Testament  stories? 

Without  doubt  I  think  of  Him  as  a  miracle-worker.  The 
real  miracle  would  be  if  such  a  being  as  He  was  had  not 
the  power  to  work  miracles.  What  you  can  do  with  your 
life  depends  upon  the  quantity  and  quality  of  it.  In  Him 
was  life !  I  do  not  pledge  myself  to  an  unhesitating  accept- 
ance of  all  the  miracle  stories  as  they  appear  in  the  New 
Testament.  In  the  matter  of  some  there  may  be  a  misun- 
derstanding of  metaphor,  in  others  an  accretion  of  legend. 
About  some  of  the  miracle  stories  I  have  no  manner  of 
doubt  whatever.  Some  of  the  others  in  the  form  in  which 
they  are  now  related  I  do  not  accept  in  the  same  un- 
hesitating way.  About  some  of  the  others  I  hold  my 
judgment  in  suspense.  That  "He  healed  many  that  were 
sick  of  divers  diseases  and  cast  out  the  demons  by  His 
word"  I  am  quite  sure.  I  am  not  by  any  means  so  sure 
that  He  caused  a  fish  to  be  caught  with  a  silver  coin  in 
its  mouth !  That  He  had  power  under  certain  conditions 
to  call  back  the  dead  to  life  I  should  on  sufficient  evidence 
be  prepared  to  believe.  I  hesitate  to  say  that  in  the  cases 
related  the  evidence  is  sufficient.  The  picture  of  Jesus 
as  a  miracle-worker  I  take  to  be  a  true  picture.  From 
a  transcendent  personality  transcendent  results  were 
bound  to  flow. 

These  considerations  lead  us  naturally  to  the  question 
of  the  Resurrection. 

His  personality  was  so  powerful  that  death  could  not 
kill  Him!  It  had  so  powerfully  impressed  itself  upon  His 
disciples  that  after  He  was  dead  they  knew  He  was  alive. 

44 


They  were  more  conscious  of  His  presence  than  ever  be- 
fore. He  rose  from  the  dead.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to 
think  of  Him  as  dead.  In  the  whole  round  of  thought  and 
experience  and  history,  of  transcendent  and  eternal  things, 
nothing  seems  to  me  so  certain  as  the  fact  that  Jesus 
Christ  triumphed  over  death  and  the  grave ;  that  He  lives 
on  still,  ruling  and  reigning  in  His  Church  and  in  the 
hearts  of  men. 

So,  in  outline,  calling  to  my  aid  lucid  and  simple  speech 
instead  of  academic  phraseology,  I  have  tried  to  show  you 
how  Jesus  Christ  is  conceived  and  preached  by  the  liberal 
theologian  of  our  day.  If  I  had  not  authority  on  my 
side  I  modestly  hope  that  I  should  still  have  the  courage 
to  say  these  things.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  did  say  them  in 
a  book,  now  out  of  print,  published  more  than  twenty 
years  ago.  But  I  am  not  without  influential  support.  Con- 
gregationalists  accept  no  creed  imposed  by  authority.  No 
Congregational  Church  can  say  to  another  Church  what 
it  must  believe.  No  teacher,  however  honored,  and  no 
assembly,  however  elected,  can  prescribe  to  us  our  beliefs. 
Nevertheless  we  are  perfectly  willing,  as  I  have  shown  in 
this  sermon,  to  tell  anybody  who  is  interested  what  we 
believe.*  And  so  the  National  Council  of  the  Congre- 
gationalists  of  America,  meeting  in  Kansas  City  last 
October,  accepted  and  published  a  statement  of  the  things 
most  assuredly  believed  amongst  us  at  the  present  time. 
The  proposed  new  Creed  had  been  long  debated  in  the 
denomination.  It  was  adopted  with  practical  unanimity, 
with  great  heartiness  and  enthusiasm.  This  is  how  it 
runs: 

"We  believe  in  God  the  Father,  infinite  in  wisdom,  goodness  and 
love ;  and  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son,  our  Lord  and  Saviour,  who,  for  us 


*  "There  is  a  point  at  which  caution  passes  over  into  insincerity ; 
and,  for  a  Church,  insincerity  is  the  unpardonable  sin.  If  the  preacher's 
word  can  not  be  trusted  with  regard  to  the  seen,  who  will  accept  it 
with  regard  to  the  unseen?  This  is  the  rock  upon  which  ignoble 
orthodoxies  are  broken ;  neither  God  nor  man  is  served  by  a  lie." — 
The  Nation  (London),  January  24,  1914. 

45 


and  our  salvation,  lived  and  died  and  rose  again  and  liveth  evermore ; 
and  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  taketh  of  the  things  of  Christ  and  re- 
vealeth  them  to  us,  renewing,  comforting,  and  inspiring  the  souls 
of  men." 

Mark  the  things  which  are  not  stated.  It  is  not  said  in 
this  Creed  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God.  There  is  no  word 
about  the  Trinity.  The  miraculous  birth  is  not  mentioned. 
The  old  dreadful  views  of  the  atonement  are  not  there. 
It  is  not  strange  that  a  monthly  magazine  widely  read 
by  preachers  in  its  issue  for  this  very  month  cites  this 
Creed  as  an  admirable  example  both  of  things  omitted  and 
things  stated,  and  praises  the  Congregationalists  for  omit- 
ting "the  dozen  and  more  doctrines  over  which  theologians 
have  spilt  good  ink  and  bad  blood." 

But  let  us  go  on  with  the  Creed: 

"We  are  united  in  striving  to  know  the  will  of  God  as  taught  in 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  in  our  purpose  to  walk  in  the  ways  of 
the  Lord,  made  known  or  to  be  made  known  to  us.  We  hold  it 
to  be  the  mission  of  the  Church  of  Christ  to  proclaim  the  Gospel 
to  all  mankind,  exalting  the  worship  of  the  one  true  God,  and 
laboring  for  the  progress  of  knowledge,  the  promotion  of  justice, 
the  triumph  of  peace,  and  the  realisation  of  human  brotherhood. 
Depending,  as  did  our  fathers,  upon  the  continued  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  lead  us  into  all  truth,  we  work  and  pray  for  the 
transformation  of  the  world  into  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and  we  look 
with  faith  for  the  triumph  of  righteousness  and  for  life  and  glory 
everlasting.  Amen." 

This  is  the  glorious  programme  which  stirs  our  hearts 
to-day.  Theology  can  only  contain  an  account  of  the 
things  we  think  about  God.  Religion  is  life.  The  real 
matter  is  for  us  to  be  on  the  side  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
real  matter,  in  the  language  of  the  new  Congregational 
Creed,  is  "to  proclaim  the  Gospel  to  all  mankind,"  is  to 
labor  "for  the  progress  of  knowledge,  the  promotion  of 
justice,  the  triumph  of  peace,  and  the  realisation  of  hu- 
man brotherhood."  Jesus  Christ  is  the  constructive  force 
in  human  life  and  in  society.  He  who  is  on  His  side 
makes,  builds,  raises  up.  He  tunnels  through  mountains 
of  human  misery  when  he  cannot  cast  them  into  the 
depths  of  the  sea.  He  flings  across  gulfs  of  dark  despair 

46 


bridges  of  eternal  hope.  He  makes  straight  through  the 
dreary  desert  of  an  uncivilised  civilisation  a  highway  for 
the  march  of  an  emancipated  people.  He  who  yields  himself 
in  simple  loyalty  to  Christ  and  seeks  to  live  in  His  spirit 
is  a  medium  of  light,  a  source  of  health,  a  centre  of  knowl- 
edge, a  saving  energy,  a  redemptive  force,  a  power  making 
for  righteousness  and  making  for  love.  If  you  will  become 
a  fellow-worker  together  with  Him,  seeking  to  bring  His 
mighty  kingdom  in,  difficulties  which  you  may  have  ex- 
perienced with  regard  to  creeds  will  seem  immeasurably 
remote  and  controversies  about  them  unspeakably  futile. 
Before  you  can  define  to  your  own  satisfaction  "justifi- 
cation by  faith,"  Faith  will  justify  herself  in  the  un- 
challengeable sanctity  and  glory  of  her  works.  Before  you 
can  adjust  with  niceties  of  theological  debate  the  relation 
of  His  perfect  humanity  to  His  effulgent  divinity,  with 
your  life  of  love  and  service  you  will  crown  Him  Lord  of 
All. 


47 


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